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I turned the net upside down to find some comparisons in gaming with Acer AS1410 vs ION. None found, although there are plenty of videos on youtube about the ION-powered Samsung N510, showing games which look perfectly playable, while there are barely any for the 1410 or the 1810.

And then came the surprise: the only comparable benchmarks I found were for Doom 3, where the N510 is said to have around 28 FPS while the 1810 had about 12 FPS, although it was with the SU3500 CPU. N510 costs £380 here while the Acer 1810TZ costs £430. Twice the performance is pretty good for less the price, isn't?

So whatever the specs on paper, probably the reality is that GPU-limited games are perfectly playable on ION, and having a CPU 2x-2.5x stronger usually counts less than having a stronger GPU. It would be nice to see clear and I hope you will do a fair heads-on comparison on games in that upcoming article.

And exactly what does the 2x more powerful CPU helps? Video encoding is something I never do on the move. If I really-really need to, I can just simply remote into my quad i7, and I do it quicker than anything here. Actually, the review at http://www.rgbfilter.com/?p=1923">http://www.rgbfilter.com/?p=1923 says about the 1410:

"When officially benchmarked, the Core Solo SU3500 is about 20 percent faster than an Atom N270 at 1.6GHz, but ‘real world’ it felt about the same."

If I add to this that N510 has bluetooth, matte screen and a much better keyboard imho, until somebody shows strong arguments against, my vote is currently for the ION.
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You may hate Atom, but looks like that for gaming ION wins hands-down over current CULV platforms. For other purposes, I am fine until Atom can play all videos, run a text editor, office apps and remote desktop, which it does. Oh, and add decent Linux support, too. Reply

3DMark is NOT a game. At all. Sorry. I include is mostly because the earlier versions in particular are great "theoretical gaming" benchmarks -- they show what the GPU can do when CPU performance isn't much of a factor.

The reality is that many games do a lot of work on the CPU. There are games that don't run acceptably on a 1.3GHz dual-core CPU (Assassin's Creed, Mass Effect, Call of Duty World at War...) and that CPU is still more than twice as fast as Atom. As you can imagine, that makes Atom very questionable on all but the least demanding games, even when paired with ION. Reply

"The HP Mini 311 is one of the first netbooks to ship with NVIDIA's ION platform. The question everyone's... "

???

"The question everone's [asking]" is, where is the question? ;)

This is gettting ridiculous. Anandtech has had truncated opening statements for as long as I can remember with no continuation inside the article. If you can't fix it, stop typing up opening statements that don't fit! Reply

You'd need to look at the "Mobile" tab to get the full abstract. Here it is:

The HP Mini 311 is one of the first netbooks to ship with NVIDIA's ION platform. The question everyone's asking is: does ION improve the netbook experience? The answer is yes, but there are other questions we still need to address. Reply

I don't know why the review sites seem to be ignoring this (I can't find a decent review anywhere), but what about the HP Pavilion dm3z? The specs I've been able to find specify a 4-5 hour battery life, 13.3" display, Radeon 4330 graphics (on the high end, but low end is still Radeon HD 3200), 7200rpm hard drive options, and a dual core AMD Athlon X2 Neo processor. There's a sweet system for $650 AR at the egg (just search for dm3 - 4GB, 320GB 7200rpm, and Radeon 3200 graphics). If you're already talking about close to $500 for this HP netbook, it's not a lot more, and it sounds like it would be enough for me to retire my real notebook. Please review it if possible. Reply

Excellent review! Looks like you hit all the important points and I like how the game selection is more relevant to this class of notebook. IMO, this raises the bar for comprehensive notebook reviews. Kudos! Reply

How come they don't give smaller SSD like 32GB or 40GB as an option. I honestly don't need 160GB for a netbook; I do not know what to even put on it. They offered a 80GB but it was quite expensive. On a second note, wouldn't a SSD increase the battery life as well? Reply

I think they would be fine, just only when you get into RAID situations (or where there are alot of people and things going on). I think normal solo/small group playing should be fine. I haven't experienced it myself, but I used to game on WoW with a P3 800 mHz w/onboard graphics (Intel Extreme II, I think). Now mind you this was before the first expansion and the laptop wasn't all that special either, but the Atom would be about equivalent to a p3 at 1.6 gHz (if my reading is right). Reply

Great article, I was contemplating buying this, but now I'm not so sure. My ONLY gaming requirement is Halo PC (multiplayer). It's an old game, but has some quirks when it comes to its demands on CPU performance. So I really need to know what the 311 can do with this game. I'll mail you a copy if you'd like.

A few days ago when ASUS announced their new dual-core Atom-based netbook, I ended up thinking that a CULV-based laptop would be a better idea (especially since that netbook has a 12" display, and only a 5 hour battery life).

So here's my point (spoiling my own upcoming article). For $600 you can get a Timeline 1810 that's about 2.5 times as fast in the CPU department, it has twice the RAM, it comes with Win7 64-bit, and battery life is anywhere from 15% to 65% better. Oh yeah, and while the CPU is "10W TDP", you'll note that the HP Mini 311 and the Timeline 1810 both have roughly the same size battery (the Timeline's is about 12% more capacity). For Internet use, the result is 35% better relative battery life.

Sure, the 1810 I just listed costs $600 and the HP Mini 311 I'm comparing it with goes for about $480. (Unless you really want to save the ~$100 and get XP with only 1GB?) If you get the http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...">Acer AS1410 (or Gateway EC1435u), you're closer to $400 and you still get 2GB RAM and Win7 (64-bit no less, though with only 2GB that's not a huge deal). A 1.2GHz SU2300 is still going to be at least 75% faster in CPU tasks than Atom N280.

You can try to make an argument for GPU performance over CPU performance on other laptops, but with Atom the CPU deficit is just so huge that outside of video decoding (something you get with GMA 4500MHD as well) and perhaps CUDA apps, it just doesn't matter much. Reply

I think a more fair comparison would be to mention all 3 tiers: netbooks, netbooks with video acceleration and CULV laptop. Netbooks have tempted me for a long while but the lack of ability to watch practically any video have long been a turn off from them.

The ION netbooks are something like $100 more over a netbook without video acceleration. That $100 gets me the ability to watch youtube, hulu, 1080p H264 content and play games like plants vs zombies, WoW or Quake Live. Then for another $100 more I can get a laptop that can possibly do the same but have better battery life, build quality and start office faster? The $100 more is seeming less appearing, especially since it is a non-primary system.

It seems like an interesting trade off, a weaker GPU and more powerful CPU (CULV + 4500MHD) or a strong GPU and weaker CPU (Atom + ION). The ION is defiantly a stronger GPU than the 4500MHD but I’m interested as to how the balance of CPU/GPU will play out in benchmarks for reasonable games.

Also, if you buy a mini 311 with Windows 7 then it comes equipped with the full ION. Granted that ION LE really IS a full ION with the DX10 disabled through drivers but it can be enabled either through a BIOS hack or forcing full ION drivers. The Windows Experience Index score for gaming jumps from 3.9 to 5.4 I'm curious how that plays out (311+full ion vs timeline for "light" gaming).

As for video playback I have no idea if the 4500MHD is any good for H264 decoding. All I’ve heard about it is from forums or comments and I would really appreciate if there was a more definitive source (anandtech) discussing the matter. I glossed over the flash 10.1 article and it would seem that either are fine for youtube or hulu but what about videos we acquired through other means?

And talking as a "typical" anandtech-reader/power-user type of guy: The ion is more interesting over the 4500MHD because no apple laptop comes with a 4500MHD but they do come with a 9400M.
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4500MHD provides enough GPU acceleration of x264/H.264/Flash decoding that when combined with a CULV CPU you can easily watch 1080p videos.

The real comparison is Acer 1410/Gateway EC1435u (essentially the same thing) vs. the HP Mini 311. All are ~$400 base price, with a slight advantage in specs (i.e. RAM) to the Acer/Gateway CULV laptops.

I can't say for sure how the Celeron SU2300 stacks up to the Pentium SU4100, but half the cache and 100MHz should mean it's about 80-85% of the performance. That should still be enough for video decoding (I'll verify with Flash 10.1 on SU4100 in the next couple days).

For graphics, GMA 4500MHD is about 1/4 the gaming performance of 9400M, but Atom really holds 9400M (ION) back it seems. If the 9400M can only run at ~1/3 it's regular gaming performance because of CPU bottlenecking, we have a real fight. If it's more like 1/2 speed, it's not as close.

You may experience an issue with the function of the left touchpad button being unset from "Click", causing some issues after you wake up from hibernate, just make sure it is set properly. HP should really release a proper Mini 311 ALPS driver for Windows 7.

I have a Timeline 1810 for review, so I actually have practical hands-on experience. Plus, when you consider the RAM upgrade on the 311, and a few other sundry extras, you quickly get a more realistic base price of $450 to $500.

At that point, comparisons with anything from the 1410 (and the Gateway EC 1435u I mentioned) through the $650 Timeline/EC models are all valid. Unfortunately, I don't have the $400 laptops in for review. I can come up with a fairly reasonable idea of how they'll perform, however, and the Celeron SU2300 is by far the best option for a small netbook right now. Reply

Those numbers are using ColorEyes Display Pro to calibrate the LCDs. I have tried in the past to come up with an "out of box" result, and either the LCDs are all horrific (typically Delta E will average around 12 to 15), or I'm not doing the test properly. Without a way to be 100% sure what was going on, I decided to just stop doing those tests.

Ultimately, I think most users will adapt to however a display looks, unless they're really serious about color quality. When we're looking at netbooks, I think the vast majority of users never really pay attention to the LCDs. Obviously, I do pay some attention, but unless a display is really good I'm not going to spend much time on that area. Right now, most of the laptop LCDs are junk. Reply

Amen to that. I find it incredible that vendors are selling 15" displays with only 1366x768 resolution. (While these 11" netbooks have the same resolution.) When I buy a 50% larger screen, I expect 50% more workspace, not 50% larger pixels. WTF... Reply

I own two HP 311 Mini's (one custom built and other 1037NR from VZW)and one HP 1151NR from VZW and can say the keyboard and touchpad placement were compromised on the 311s from older versions. The smooth keys and angle due to 6 cell make it challenging to type on than the 1151's matte finish and flat bottom. Plus, the left/right mouse buttons on the bottom make it tough to click compared to 1151.

However, compared to the older 1151 there are many advantages (screen size, larger stock battery and RAM, easy access to internals) and the reason why I picked up a second HP 311. The HP 1151 is being traded in tomorrow. Reply

jarred, you act like an atom limits the performance/experience even in simple day to day applications. i have to admit, i had similar gripes before my gf got her asus 1005hah, but now i learned, that this standard atom-netbook is delivering quite well in everyday tasks.

(of course) i had the pleasure to set this thing up installing software etc and i also did a lot of web-browsing and not even in this new youtube 1080p video-sample (fullscreen) i had slow-downs while bettery life was exceptional (8-10h) because i could use the super-power-save mode.

boot and hibernate etc also were much faster than on our standard notebooks (dell vostro c2d).

so while atom is extremely slow in raw numbers compared to other cpus, the everyday tasks of the average user dont suffer from this limitation.

Not to mention that for more compute intensive operations (other than games and multimedia authoring) there's always VNC or remote desktop. Works well for a bunch of engineering and scientific software.

Netbook+desktop is a very good alternative to a single power notebook, and often comes in cheaper and more portable to boot. Reply

I bought this dv6-1154tx for INR 67,000 (approx. US $1400) when I joined uni this year. Should have got a $1000 desktop and a $400 netbook instead. Now I'm stuck with this notebook for another couple years or so at least. Reply

I got an Asus 751h with the slower 1.33GHz processor, and apart from being sluggish on Youtube and some other unnecessarily intensive sites, for what I actually use it for, writing papers in the library, it's perfectly functional.
Most of the time is spent checking websites for resources, looking at pdfs and using Word 07, and for all those tasks it's fine.

But have either of you tried something like a Timeline 1810? I have, and I can tell you that the experience is better than Atom -- quite a bit better in many instances. It's not just about raw, CPU intensive performance; the 1810 boots faster (marginally) and loads applications faster. Trying to open a dialog while a video is decoding as one example is horrible on Atom -- better to pause the video first.

Basically, Atom *can* do what you need, but so can just about any other CPU currently out there. Reply

I picked up a Toshiba Satellite L305-S5921 for $399 free shipping. It only had 2 GB of RAM, and came with Vista home premium, so of course I purchased a 4GB kit at the same time ( both from the egg ).

I have not personally owned a netbook, but a friend of mine bought one for his wife, and I have to say it was dog slow. Boot times ranged around one minute, and the initial XP Home bootup was more like 3 minutes. I literally booted it up, walked away, did a few things, came back and it was still booting . . . Price at the time was slightly less than the notebook I purchased.

I have since retrograded to XP pro because the system was not directx 10 capable anyhow, and for me this would be the only reason to use Vista. Anyways, I do play games, and it will play games like GTA San Andreas maxed settings ( except 16 bit color ), at the native resolution, with no AA. It hardly ever stutters, usually only when I have background tasks running. What it will not do however, is play the most recent game titles well. I am fairly certain it would handle WoW just fine ( although I do not play it personally ).

As for non gaming tasks, it is hard to know you're using a laptop ( performance wise of course ). That is every day productive applications like Office 2007, or web browsing etc. It also has no problems playing movies, even HD content from YouTube. Used as a development machine, or the like, of course it would do things like compile applications slower. This is to be expected. Encoding movies would likely suffer as well.

Anyways, my point is; I can not see spending the same, or more money on a netbook , when you can purchase a laptop that will run circles around it. That is; Unless you think you're cool because you have an uber small PC. Or perhaps you have a legitimate reason such as being away from an electrical outlet for long periods of time. Or the power available to you is very minimal ( read: limited solar/wind power, or like the poster above who spends lots of time in the library researching and writing papers ). Reply

no, i havent tried a timeline and -of course- the experience is better than the atom. the experience on my 2ghz c2d 2gb ddr2 5400rpm hdd dell should be even faster, at least in cpu-intensive apps, but the main advantage of the atom aint processing power, its a tdp of 2,5w and the low price, while delivering _enough_ power for most browsing, office and media-scenarios.

i have nothing against ion, culv or c2d, im just saying atom is good enough, at least for a secondairy computer.

what we also have to consider is, that we, writing and reading a tech-site, are power users, we can overstress even the fastest desktops. average joe would a little bit less demanding, i think.

The thing is, CULV are 10W TDP and will typically use less than that, so if you can get that for the same price why not? Atom needs to be cheaper, like around the $300 mark, and in many cases it is. The HP Mini 311 isn't one of those designs, unfortunately. Also, even with Atom I'd like 2GB RAM, and the 2GB netbooks are all pushing into CULV pricing territory. Reply

I recently got a little samsung NC10, and strangely, its taken over from my main powerhouse PC. Its just so handy, I can read the morning news while I eat breakfast at the table like a civilised human being. When I come home in the evening I just carry it down and plug it into a 22 inch monitor and watch tv/films. I press the ON button and within 7 or 8 seconds I can browse. Also, the battery life is key, because I don't have to keep the damn thing plugged in all the time.

Of course its fiddly and a little slow, but its just so handy, and it isn't some giant hulk or eyesore that takes up half my room.

If they can make them a little more powerful without upping the weight or loosing battery power then these little netbooks will be indespensible. Reply

I read this article on an Acer 1810T. It's a great notebook and the $400 1410 with the su2300 is an even better value. If you are in the market for a net/notebook you owe it to yourself to compare this line with whatever else you're looking at.

One great surprise was that the thing supports simultaneous extended desktop on both the hdmi and vga ports (disabling the notebook screen) for multimonitor setups. The 1810T at least does 1080p x264 content using dxva in mpc-hc just fine. Reply

The comparison to the 1810 Timeline is a good one, and I'd love to see a review comparing performance of that notebook. Looks like we're at a point where netbooks have grown big enough and notebooks have grown small light and inexpensive enough that the distinction is blurring. Which I think is how things should be. Making a point to benchmark netbooks/notebooks of similar dimensions together might help sort out this market. Reply

Hopefully you'll have an ASUS Eee PC 1201N for review. The dual core Atom might make a difference when it comes to gaming.

For games, I think that it'd be nice of you could try out WoW. Playing MMO's is an obvious "net" activity. When I was playing City of Heroes, I used to want to play it while on the road, on my Fujitsu P1510D. Horrible experience, I can tell you, although it at least worked. Reply

This is a very good laptop also it looks very attractive and all the functions are easily performed.The screen is wide and the Mini 311 comes with a 6-cell battery standard I was surprised to find that despite the large high resolution screen, and Nvidia ION, the Mini 311 has some pretty good battery life. Some more Sources: http://www.laptopadapterac.comReply